PGP is Product of the Week

PGP is Product of the Week in last weeks PCMag.

I will bang my drum one more time...
How to beat the three letter agencies:

1.   Power of the press is just one of the weapons at our disposal.  Public 
education and continued press on privacy alternatives is important.   One of 
the things that would help a concerted offensive against the three letter 
agencies that want to remove our privacy would be to send more articles to 
the industry rags.  Hopefully better than the one published in Byte.   The 
more exposure the better.  You there!  Start writing!

2.   Improve the ease-of-use factor for PGP... That is, write more front 
ends (windowing since most of the general public uses it).  Example: 
ViaCryptPGP for Compuserve's WINCIM and navigator.  I believe in the 
critical mass theory... "A product becomes a defacto standard not that it is 
always the best product but because of sheer number of users".  In this case 
I am pushing PGP but I think it would go for crypto products in general.

3.  Drive for an independent "renegade" standard like PGP.  The term 
renegade here meaning "having rejected tradition".  Flood the net with it 
and the genie is truly out of the bottle.   Now that PGP is "legal" in the 
US, and people outside the U.S. have the product spec no-one gets left out 
in the cold.

4.  Mentioned earlier... "Attack the NSA budget".  This can be a win and a 
loose since a smaller budget could lower our countries defenses.  It is 
possible that an attack on the budget would get them to lay off without any 
real action needing to be taken.



                                        ...  __o
                                       ..   -\<,
chris.claborne@sandiegoca.ncr.com      ...(*)/(*).          CI$: 76340.2422
PGP Pub Key fingerprint =  A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69  52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA
Avail on Pub Key server.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> Now that PGP is "legal" in the 
> US, and people outside the U.S. have the product spec no-one gets left out 
> in the cold.

It's interesting that you put it exactly like that.  It happens that I
have been grappling, so far unsuccessfully, with the fact that there is
a group of people who _are_ ``left out in the cold''.  I would value
your comments on this.

A person in the group to which I refer is ``in the US'' by the commonly
understood geographical definition of that phrase, but has as a matter
of conscience renounced any citizenship he may have had.  He refuses on
principle to affirm that he is a national person, and therefore cannot
use PGP 2.6 because such affirmation is supposed to be required in order
to obtain PGP 2.6, and may therefore be implicit in each use of PGP 2.6.
On the other hand, if he uses PGP 2.6ui, he risks being accused of
violating RSADSI's patent rights, because they will take him to be ``in
the US'', even though he has disaffiliated himself.

What version of PGP can such a person use?

	John E. Kreznar		| Relations among people to be by
	jkreznar@ininx.com	| mutual consent, or not at all.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.3a

iQCVAgUBLgotOcDhz44ugybJAQFK5QQAr9nSs15ffo49jXFarfi8kSIQXPH16+1V
hGgMre0LktEG4M2hVO8K2VmoFiy982yM9W8jQmH2e6twrTGqiOmEKEyNcOFKwsWA
Ew45bEWcBcZpE/Ql+LBHk0PJNHoMGo/ORf4iec5ySYVo89XDahm+a6NMcGbBchHA
/3IdqOddt/c=
=8ITr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

John E. Kreznar:

| A person in the group to which I refer is ``in the US'' by the commonly
| understood geographical definition of that phrase, but has as a matter
| of conscience renounced any citizenship he may have had.  He refuses on
| principle to affirm that he is a national person, and therefore cannot
| use PGP 2.6 because such affirmation is supposed to be required in order
| to obtain PGP 2.6, and may therefore be implicit in each use of PGP 2.6.

[...]

| What version of PGP can such a person use?

2.4/2.7, from ViaCrypt.  They are licensed, without requiring the
buyer to assert that they are a US citizzen, and part of the money you
pay out is for the RSA license.

Viacrypt: 602 944 0773

Adam


-- 
Adam Shostack 				       adam@bwh.harvard.edu

Politics.  From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small,
annoying bloodsucker.